The IWC Portugieser Eternal Calendar Wins the GPHG 2024 Aiguille d’Or (And All Prize Winners)

The 2024 edition of the Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève has just unveiled the grand winner of this year’s awards ceremony! Often regarded as the Oscars of Watchmaking, the GPHG stands for a celebration of all things surrounding mechanical watchmaking. A specially selected jury, which included our founder and editor-in-chief Frank Geelen, has narrowed down all the entries into multiple categories with six watches each. Out of all the entries, only one has been selected as the grand winner, receiving the coveted “Aiguille d’Or” trophy for Best of Show. In addition to that, each category winner also received an award. Last year, the stunningly complex Audemars Piguet Code 11.59 Ultra-Complication Universelle, the most complicated wristwatch ever created by the brand, took the golden hand back home. This year, the jury of the GPHG 2024 rewarded astronomical precision with the IWC Portugieser Eternal Calendar, the brand’s first secular calendar. And we also have the full list of winners at the 2024 edition of the GPHG, with all represented categories.

GPHG 2024 – Quick take

There’s been a time when the GPHG rewarded ultra-thin watchmaking, with the Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Selfwinding Perpetual Calendar Ultra-Thin in 2019 (back then the thinnest QP) and the Piaget Altiplano Ultimate Concept in 2020 (the thinnest mechanical watch ever made), and Bulgari with the Octo Finissimo Perpetual Calendar in 2021. Then, in 2022, followed a supremely complex chronograph, the Legacy Machine Sequential EVO, this time celebrating an independent watchmaker. Last year, with the Code 11.59 Ultra-Complication Universelle, the Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève went back to celebrating watchmaking at its best with an ultra-complex watch. This year, the jury awards one of the most advanced calendar watches of recent years, the Portugieser Eternal Calendar.

In the world of watchmaking, there’s the perpetual calendar, and then there’s the extremely rare secular calendar, which takes into account even the most complex oddities of the Gregorian calendar, including centurial years. IWC’s Eternal Calendar is equipped with a 400-year gear designed to skip three leap years over four centuries. This quantum leap allows it to calculate the leap year correctly until 3999 – and it’s been done in a very clever way too, as the 400-year gear has just eight components and responds to the brand’s usual simplification of complications. And that’s not all, as the IWC Portugieser Eternal Calendar includes the world’s most accurate moon phase display, deviating from the Moon’s orbit by only one day after 45 million years.

Housed in a watch that features all the design cues of this now iconic collection, in a platinum case with a crisp white dial with sapphire crystal elements over it, the GPHG 2024 here rewards both the longevity of this collection and the true ingenuity of the brand’s R&D team, which managed to create one of the most advanced calendar watches now available. You can read our in-depth review of this watch, including a video to explain it all, here.

And now, here’s the complete list of the winning watches at the GPHG 2024:

Aiguille d’Or” Grand Prix – IWC Portugieser Eternal Calendar

Ladies’ Watch – Van Cleef & Arpels Lady Jour Nuit

Ladies’ Complication – Van Cleef & Arpels Lady Arpels Brise d’ete

Time Only Watch – H. Moser & Cie Streamliner Small Seconds Blue Enamel

Men’s Watch – Voutilainen KV20i Reversed

Men’s Complication – De Bethune DB Kind Of Grande Complication

Iconic Watch – Piaget Piaget Polo 79

Tourbillon – Daniel Roth Tourbillon Souscription

Calendar and Astronomy – Laurent Ferrier Classic Moon Silver

Mechanical Exception – Bovet 1822 Recital 28 Prowess 1

Chronograph Watch – Chronograph Monopoussoir Sylvain Pinaud x Massena Lab

Sports Watch – Ming 37.09 Bluefin

Jewellery – Chopard Laguna High-Jewellery Secret Watch

Artistic Craft – Van Cleef & Arpels Lady Arpels Jour Enchante

Petite Aiguille – Kudoke 3 Salmon

Challenge – Otsuka Lotec No.6

Eco-innovation Prize – Chopard L.U.C Qualite Fleurier

Audacity prize – Berneron Mirage Sienna

Horological Revelation Prize – Remy Cools Tourbillon Atelier

Chronometry Prize – Bernhard Lederer 3 Times Certified Observatory Chronometer

Special Jury Prize – Jean-Pierre Hagmann, Casemaker

More details at GPHG.org.